Masteries

Offense:
0

Defense:
18

Utility:
12

Some people say to me "Why do you lane as Malphite? He has a great jungle." and they are right, Malphite does make a good jungler and his ultimate is definately a compliment to that. However, the very first time I played Malphite, I found a tanking guide first. I love tank Malphite, and no matter how hard anyone tries to make me jungle, I simply cannot step away from my tanky play.

So without further ado, here is Malphite, The Diamond Solid Tank.

Skills

Granite Shield - PassiveMalphite is shielded by a layer of rock which absorbs damage up to 10% of his maximum health. If he has not been hit for 8 seconds, this effect recharges.

This passive is a great tanking passive as you can shrug off the initial brunt of a team battle or take a large chunk of damage away from someone's ultimate. This skill is based off of your actual health, but takes modifiers suchs as armour and magic resist into account, making it even better for tanking. At around level 11, you can take a full shot from a turret before the shield gives, meaning you can run in, chuck a shard and get out again unscathed.

This is the first ability you should take and the second one that you max. The reason for taking it first is simply for harrasment to keep enemy champions on their toes in a lane and chip away at their health.

Later in the game the shard has a lot more use, from initating on an enemy so they can't run, to turning around and slowing down a champion hot on your heels and speeding away with the stolen movement speed. The latter never ceases to make me chuckle.

The last skill you max. The only reason you take this skill at level 3 is for the extra armour to stack with Ground Slam or your passive. It can come in handy if you're punching a turret, otherwise it's not really that great.

The first ability that you max. This is your main source of damage as it stacks with armour. Ground Slam has low mana, low cooldown and a large effect on phsyical champions. Combined with Frozen Heart and Randuin's Omen, this spell can reduce a AS champion to a crawl.

Always try to hit Brutal Stikes before you drop a Ground Slam if you can, as it adds armour and therefore damage. If used in combination with your ultimate, can be quite, quite devastating, especially if all the targets you launched are in range of the slam.

A brilliant ultimate, in every way, shape and form. Can be used in endless ways, from charging head first into a teamfight to disable as many of their team as you can, to slamming into someone retreating with low health for a kill, to powering through a wall to escape.

Take into account that while it's very tempting to use Malphite's ult to escape, you can actually turn a 1v1 scenario around with quickly ulting into a relentless hunter and hitting them with your full combo of attacks, leaving them to start running.

A great combo is: R, W, E, Q.
Your ult pops them in the air, you slap them around for a ton of damage with your E boosted by W and then slow them down as they try to escape with Q. This combo has uses in all scenarios, 1v1s and teamfights. In 1v1s it would probably make people wet themselves and in teamfights it allows your allies to capatalise on the poor unfortunate sod that you've slowed.
Items!

You can swap a lot of Malph's items out for more MR friendly gear if you're against a lot of casters.

Phsyical build - Amazing phsyical damage tank able to take a huge amount of punishment before hitting the ground.

Start with:
Meki Pendant & 2x Health Potions,
Chalice @ 500,

For boots, you need to look carefully at the enemy team. If they have a lot of CC, go for Mercury's Treads, if not then take Ninja Tabi.

Get Glacial Shroud when you have the money and build it into into Frozen Heart for the CD reduction on your Ground Slam & lovely ult, as well as the attack speed reduction that stacks with Ground Slam.

Grab Warden's Mail and build it into Randuin's Omen. A great tanking item with an active that goes great with your combo. Hit it after you've used Ground Slam instead of Q if you're worried about mana or if you used Q to catch up to someone in the first place.

After Randuin's you're free to build whatever you want. My suggestion is Guardian's Angel, but you could also get something like Frozen Mallet. The choice is yours, really.

In defense I take Magic Resist, armour and Dodge related masteries, going no further than Veteran's Scars.

In Utility I take mana regen, increased mana and put the last point in Greed to help generate a bit of extra gold. If you take Fortify, you can lose the point in Greed and put it in Reinforce.
Summoner Spells
Personally, I prefer to take:
Flash,
Heal,

Flash allows you a quick reposition for a better Ground Slam, to catch up to slow someone with Q or just a quick escape.

Heal is my other choice because I generally play with aggressive partners. Plus hitting heal midway during a fight can suddenly give your team a massive advantage, especially as you can charge in and pop it right away if your team are in range and it's worth using.

As you're playing a tank, Exhaust isn't exactly useful and your DPS will likely have it anyway. Other than that, there aren't any masteries that can go HORRIBLY wrong on Tank Malphite. Obviously you don't want Smite.

In fact, not taking smite will either make your enemies wonder what the hell you're doing and underestimate you, or fill them with dread as they realise they are in for a hell of having their faces pounded into the dirt.
Gameplay

Early Game:
To begin with, just stay in your lane. Last hit creeps when you can and harrass enemy champions with Q. If anyone gets too close, hit W and start walking towards them. If they don't run straight away, use E. If they run, throw another Q at them and go back to last hitting.

If your partner starts attacking someone, throw your slow on their target and try and get in range for a Ground Slam. If you have flash, don't be afraid to pop it to land an E or Q and get a kill with that.

Mid Game:
If you've taken your tower down in your lane, feel free to head out to other lanes that need that last push or are struggling completely. This is when you really want to make yourself known around the map. If your team is doing dragon, help out. If not, get them to do it when you can.

Late Game:
This is when you really start getting your teeth into things and your enemy's faces into the floor. Be there for every teamfight, get yourself into the thick of it and Ground Slam to victory, throw your slows on the squishies so they can't feel and pop Randuin's if you slam into a group of them.

Saying charge in is all well and good, but know your limits. It's no good charging into a group of them if you'll come out worse off. Be wary of DPS champions who have caught onto you and started building armour penetration or have armour penetration skills.
That is all for this guide. Now get out there and crush some faces with Malphite!

League of Legends is a team based, real time strategy game set in a mythical world of swords & magic where epic battles decide the fate of mystical nations. Game players take on the role of a Summoner who conjures and controls champions to fight for them at the Institute of War. During game play champions gain experience and items to enhance their skills and abilities. How players develop and play their champions can be the difference between a crushing defeat or a glorious victory!